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In the continuing resolution that advanced in the Senate on Sunday, the group of Democratic drafters (what I’m calling the Cave Caucus) demonstrated that they have every ability to constrain Donald Trump and OMB director Russ Vought’s desires and stop the consolidation of executive power. But they only did it in one area, to grab one necessary vote for passage, not because they care about Congress’s relevance as an institution. That this Senate knows how to restore the power imbalance in Washington and chose not to is almost worse than completely ignoring it.
I have been arguing consistently throughout the shutdown that Democrats were running into problems by saying one thing in public and another in private. The public argument of the shutdown was about Affordable Care Act subsidies, and Democrats didn’t have much of a policy plan for what to do if Republicans just said no. Politically, they reset the conversation to friendly turf; getting Republicans to express their bonkers health care ideas out loud is where Democrats want to be.
But it was easy to see where this impasse would lead. In fact, on October 6 I wrote that the endgame would look something like Republicans offering an “assurance” of negotiations or a vote as long as short-term funding passes, and Democrats deciding that was a real rather than a dubious offer. Of course, that’s what happened.
But there was a behind-the-scenes factor in the shutdown too, namely, that Trump was making a mockery of the appropriations process by withholding funds and dismantling agencies and rescinding programs. The Democratic counteroffer had provisions for a “No Kings” budget, to stop the withholding and rescinding of funds. But because that was largely in private, without any momentum behind it politically, that was destined to flounder.
If this was a real No Kings budget, even with the same Lucy-and-the-football move on health care, I would have some sympathy for Josh Marshall’s argument that Democrats got caught trying, raised the salience of health care as an issue, showed some fight, and just couldn’t hold the caucus together to the conclusion. Republicans are still in a terrible situation on health care; they will either give in to Democratic demands or suffer painful electoral consequences. That will play out regardless of appropriations. But ensuring that legislative funding actually gets spent was something tied directly to the shutdown fight that Democrats had within their power to control. That’s what they fumbled, and that’s not forgivable.
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